Consciousness is Storytelling

Thesis Our experience of consciousness is the result of the brain creating a story to explain what it is doing

Defining Consciousness Psychologists define it as awareness of the environment and mental processes Consciousness is experienced as unitary

The Brain is a Storyteller Top-down processing in perception – Illusions – The blind spot Inferences in reading and memory

More than the Sum of Mental Processes Specific brain areas underlie specific mental processes – Visual cortex for processing visual information – Hippocampus for storing memories – Suprachiasmic Nucleus for regulating sleep/wake cycle Dissociation between processes and awareness – Blindsight – Neglect – Absence seizures

Consciousness as Storytelling Anosagnosia and confabulation From Ramachandran (1998): R(lifting patient’s paralyzed arm): Whose arm is this? P: What’s that arm doing in my bed? R: Well, whose arm is it? P: That’s my brother’s arm. R: Why do you think it’s your brother’s arm? P: Because it’s big and hairy, doctor, and I don’t have hairy arms.

Consciousness as Storytelling Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis – Pons generates random activity during REM sleep – Cortex interprets random thoughts and images and constructs a narrative – Consistent with varying interpretations of the same dream content

Left Hemisphere as Storyteller Split brain patients Left hemisphere interprets right hemisphere processes This may be a general function of the left hemisphere even in patients without split brains